Hi.

This isn't a how-to. I'm not a pinterest mom. I'm a firm believer in faking it 'til you make it. This is for all the millennials out there who secretly have no idea what they're doing. I'm looking at you, millennial caregivers.

Jul 23

Jul 23 It Comes in Waves

And it has finally happened. The inevitable. My mom got an eviction notice. Actually, what happened was that her landlord called me and told me they gave her a 60 day eviction notice. They said she's had enough warnings and she's too disruptive to neighboring businesses. Then I called my mom and she pretended like she hadn't heard anything about it. Of course, in her mind, she did nothing wrong and it was completely out of the blue. She also doesn't seem to grasp the severity of the situation. When I talked to her about it, she acted like it was a good thing. Honestly, I have zero experience with evictions and what it does for future apartment hunting, but I assume it can't help her case moving forward.

It's really, really, really hard to keep my cool in these situations. All I want to do is yell at her and get some sort of rise out of her. She has no idea how her actions affect us. Come to think of it, she has no idea how her actions affect her future either. There's no point in getting emotional or frustrated by the situation. I know that. I need for her to continue to see me as "on her side". That's really the only way I can help her. It takes a lot of self control to be able to take a deep breath and just keep moving forward.

I think the next step is getting her in some sort of senior living community. I don't think she needs full-time assisted living -- as least not yet. I do think that if she was living in an independent senior living facility, the staff would be more understanding of the disease. Plus, those complexes tend to be near public transportation and activities. Her case worker comes to her apartment weekly to work on everyday tasks. Hopefully their focus for the next few weeks can be finding a new apartment.

In other news, my father-in-law isn't completely out of the woods yet. He has been dieting and exercising and losing lots of weight since the minor heart attack. His most recent appointment wasn't great and the doctors decided they need to go in to poke around. It's really scary. And S is scared. But, the fact that his procedure isn't for another week makes us think that the doctors don't think it's an emergency. If it was an emergency, they would have gotten him in immediately. And, again, the fact that S's dad knew his body well enough to know he should go in to see the doctor is only positive.

As we've learned, it comes in waves. All of this is completely overwhelming. I feel pulled in a million directions every minute. But I'm learning to roll with the punches. Of course, getting upset is natural, but moving forward positively is the only way we're going to make it out of this alive.

If anyone is reading this, please send good vibes my way. I promise to return the favor.